Today at the Mobile World Congress Nokia announced the Beta version of Nokia Maps 2.0, providing pedestrian navigation, adding multimedia city guides, offering satellite images, and sporting a redesigned user interface.

Nokia 6210 Navigator More Photos View Specs

Nokia Maps 2.0 adds Walk, a pedestrian-focused navigation application, by guiding users from A to B with visual turn-by-turn directions. It helps them locate themselves by giving information about the surrounding buildings, streets and parks (including pathways through the park) and in newer handsets, like the Nokia 6210 Navigator, points the direction in which they are walking; using the handset's built in compass for orientation.

The new Nokia Maps 2.0 update also adds the option to purchase multimedia guides that feature photos, videos and audio streams. As with the previous version of Nokia Maps, map users will receive a free 3-day Navigation trial, for Walk and Drive, plus an additional free 10 minute City Guide trial.

Upgrading to the GPS navigation option provides clear, turn-by-turn visual and voice guidance. For Nokia devices that doesn't have built-in GPS, users can use an external GPS module with a compatible device. Nokia Maps 2.0 will also have, for an optional fee, real-time traffic feeds with dynamic re-routing in 18 European countries. With vector maps provided by TeleAtlas and Navteq, Nokia Maps now has maps covering over 200 countries, with over 70 of them navigable.

Nokia Maps 2.0 can also lead commuters to the nearest transit station using localized icons in 17 cities so they can hop on the Metro to get across town. While they are on riding the Metro they can discover and explore new places using the hybrid satellite views or by purchasing one of the new multimedia city guides from companies like Berlitz.

Nokia also announced that they are planning on bringing Nokia Maps to the mass market with a Series 40 version of Nokia Maps, which will be ready during the 1st half of 2008. Devices based on the Series 40 platform accounted for a large portion of the more than 437-million devices Nokia estimates it had cumulatively shipped by the end of 2007.

The new version of Nokia Maps 2.0 for selected devices is available on the Nokia Beta Labs website: http://www.nokia.com/betalabs . The current version of Nokia Maps and the Nokia Map Loader are freely available for download for selected devices at http://www.maps.nokia.com .